There came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's mightiest heroes found themselves in sudden and unexpected crises, each one worse than the one before. Tony Stark, while giving a speech at the UN (and completely sober), suddenly became intoxicated and began to insult the delegate of Latveria. Jack of Hearts, who had been dead, appeared at the door of the mansion... and exploded, killing Scott Lang. The Vision returned in a Quinjet, crashed it against into the mansion, and released five Ultrons from his body. She-Hulk lost control during the battle and became as savage as the Hulk. The UN broke relations with the Avengers because of Stark's outburst. All of the heroes who had once been Avengers showed up to help... and the alien Kree launched an all-out attack. Hawkeye died during in battle, taking out a Kree ship.

At the climax of it all, Doctor Strange appeared in his astral form. He told them that the Scarlet Witch's chaotic powers were to blame for this — the memory of her lost children had driven her insane and taken all the checks off of her reality-warping powers. He engaged Wanda in magical combat and turned the Eye of Agamotto against her, which left her in a coma. Her father Magneto took away to Genosha to take care of her.

Without government support, and without financial support from Stark (who was nearly bankrupt), the Avengers had no other choice but to break up.

Avengers Disassembled contains examples of:

Aliens Speaking English: Invoked. They captured a Kree who was talking in Black Speech. Since they knew he could speak in English, they ordered him to use a language they could understand.

Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: Nick Fury get really angry when this trope came into play. What do you mean you have no sensor readings? There is a fraggin' Kree ship out there, shooting at the city!!! But don't be too hard on them, they were not prepared to deal with magic.

Break the Cutie: She-Hulk is always the Life of the Party, but here she suffers a lot. She saw a friend killed for no reason, lost control like the Hulk and killed the Vision, controlled by the Scarlet Witch.

Canon Discontinuity: The Chaos Magic, Agatha Harkness and other things associated to Wanda's power

During Busiek's run, some years before, the Vision and the Scarlet Witch remembered their sons without either of them losing their sanity.

When closing the mansion, Stark mentioned that he had stored and taken away all the fancy materials and technology. Still, when the Young Avengers fought against Kang in the abandoned mansion a pair of months later, they had no problem in finding several old weapons of the Avengers.

And the infamous one — Doctor Strange told the Avengers that there was no such thing as "chaos magic," despite having used it himself in his own solo series. This was later explained by Chthon himself, who said that the Sorcerers Supreme and others had tried to limit his power by saying that there was no such thing as chaos magic.

Downer Ending: The Avengers are disbanded, suffering from the psychological scars of such a horrible betrayal. Several of their closest friends and allies (Hawkeye, Scott Lang, Vision) are dead. The only 'good' thing to come of this was that Wanda was stopped, and even then it proved to only be a temporary and very Pyrrhic Victory.

Dying Moment of Awesome: Hawkeye will not die simply because of an explosion of his arrows at his back. Not, that's too mundane for him. He has to take a Kree soldier, use his jet pack, fly into the motor of the main ship, and make it blow up. That is a fine way to die!

Stupid Sacrifice: When he was resurrected later, Hawkeye explained that he thought it was his moment of glory at the time. The others - and the audience - disagreed, since he had plenty of time to just take off his quiver. Hawkeye wound up feeling rather embarrassed by the whole affair.

A Glitch in the Matrix: As Nick Fury realized, the Kree had all the power they needed to blow up the city from their ships, so why did they send land troops against the Avengers? This was a sign that the invaders were not the real Kree, but the Kree as imagined by the Scarlet Witch.

Idiot Ball: Writer John Rogers actually helped popularize this term in a blog post about this very storyline. Notable examples include Hawkeye having no way other than suicide to keep his trick arrows from killing everyone around him; Dr. Strange not knowing what happened to Wanda's children even though he delivered them himself; and finally the Avengers' decision to let Wanda's terrorist supervillain father take her away at the end. Though the last one could be explained by the fact that wouldn't have had a prayer of taking him in a fight at that point.

Internal Homage: The last issue, before breaking up, the Avengers remembered some of their greatest adventures or moments. Each flashback drawn by a different artist.

Just a Machine: Said by She-Hulk when she destroyed the Vision. Forgive her: she was not being herself. When Vision is rebuilt later (just before Avengers vs. X-Men), he goes after She-Hulk and they have a heart-to-heart, with him forgiving her and her very depressed over what she did and, at the same time, relieved that her friend was back.

Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you didn't know that the Scarlet Witch was behind all this, where have you been the last 10 years?

Henry Pym whines about never being able to live down the creation of Ultron, that everyone will always remember him because of that, and Tony Stark had a similar problem with his old alcoholism.

Also during his drunk tirade, Tony yells at Pym about having a wife to beat up.

Not Himself: Tony Stark and She-Hulk, due to the manipulation of the Scarlet Witch.

Nothing Is The Same Any More: Even though the Avengers returned a month later, the story was a turning point that broke most of their status quo. Before this, they were agents of the UN; after this, the New Avengers were a self-funded street-level team (until Mighty Avengers).

Red Skies Crossover: One of the most blatant on record. Plenty of Marvel's titles carried a "Disassembled" banner, but only one of them had more than a passing reference to the event, and none of these "tie-ins" enhanced the main title — the only one with a direct connection was Cap/Falcon, and even that was never mentioned in the main story. Nearly all the other were prequels (Spider-Man and Thor), sequels (Fantastic Four) or both (Iron Man had one of each).

Ret Gone: Agatha Harkness is dead... but she did not die during this story. She died several years ago, and the times we saw her, it was the Scarlet Witch making things up.

Wham Line: "Not like this. Not like this! Like THIS!" This one was so fondly remembered that Marvel put "Not like this...!" on the tribute plaque they gave to Brian Michael Bendis when he retired from writing the Avengers books.

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